TORONTO - In 2009, the Detroit Pistons selected Gonzaga product Austin Daye with the 15th overall pick, just ahead of a trio of gifted point guards in Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson and Jeff Teague. Dikembe Mutombo Jersey . The Pistons had been an Eastern Conference powerhouse, a playoff team for eight consecutive years but they found themselves on the downswing as Joe Dumars and company hoped to tread water, putting off an inevitable rebuild (they havent qualified for the postseason since 2009). Chauncey Billups was traded to Denver the year prior, the Allen Iverson experiment was unsuccessful and short-lived and the team decided to part ways with an aging Rasheed Wallace. A new era was about to begin in Detroit and two of the players that remained from those great Piston teams served as justification for the Daye pick. Like Daye, a 6-foot-11 wing player who weighed in at 192 pounds when he was drafted as a 21-year-old, Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince both came into the league with a similarly thin frame. It was always understood that Daye would need to get stronger, put on some weight and add muscle, but the sustained success of Hamilton and Prince in Detroit proved that the body-type was not an NBA death sentence. "I was always a slender guy," Daye said Saturday, in training camp with the Raptors, his third team in eight months. "A lot of other guys in the league are slender but theyre able to deal with it." Daye has yet to tap into the great potential that many believed he had back in 2009 and the knock on him has always centred on his strength. Signed to a two-year deal at the league minimum (the second year is only partially guaranteed), Daye has an opportunity to revive his career in Toronto; an opportunity he spent the offseason preparing for by addressing the very thing that continues to hold him back. After signing Daye in early August, Masai Ujiri and the Raptors hired Alonzo Freeman - facility director at PSI in Las Vegas - to implement and oversee a strict dietary program and train the 25-year-old forward. Daye credits Freeman and the work they put in for his transformation coming into camp this fall. "All thanks goes to him," Daye said, "for putting the weight on me and just keeping my mind focused and my nutrition very tight and looked upon." It all started with a blood test. "I actually took a blood test and found out some foods that dont really help me gain weight," he said. "Surprisingly they were foods that I eat a lot so I had to make some changes with my diet." The Raptors forward was surprised by how much the test revealed and how much of a difference the subsequent adjustments improved his overall conditioning. Drinking protein shakes after workouts and staying hydrated - something he wasnt conscious enough of before - helped him in this process. "I feel a lot better," Daye proclaimed. "Its been a long summer and I worked really hard. I can definitely see the results out there, just getting to the basket and taking contact a little better but as far as everything else, I think I did a good job just staying focused on the task at hand and being ready for camp." "He committed to it," Raptors coach Dwane Casey said of Dayes offseason work. "He did a great job with it." The added strength should come in handy as Daye transitions from playing primarily at the three over his first four seasons to coming off the bench as a stretch power forward, where Coach Casey plans to platoon him with sharpshooter Steve Novak. "Austin has every NBA skill," Casey said after practice Saturday. "The only thing hes ever had to work on is his strength and his body to not get knocked off the mark, not to give up offensive rebounds and to be stronger. Thats his biggest challenge as an NBA player because hes one of the best three-point shooters that we have [and] he has a great basketball IQ." While Novaks strengths and weaknesses are well known to Casey and the coaching staff, Daye remains somewhat of an unknown. As a result, and with Novak nursing a sore right thumb, Daye should get an opportunity to prove himself in the preseason. Come the Oct. 30 season opener consistent playing time is far from a guarantee for Daye, as Casey has stated hed like to trim the rotation down to eight or nine players (though it may be a fluid rotation early in the year). To factor into the regular season rotation, hell have to stand out in the final three exhibition games with Casey monitoring his defence, rebounding and ability to stay on the floor (hes committed 13 fouls in 48 preseason minutes). The chance hell be given to play is one of the things that drew him to Toronto in the offseason. He had at least one other notable suitor. "I know Miami was looking at me and thats a team I always played well against," Daye said. "It [would have been] a chance to get a ring but I dont know how much I would have played." "Im sure I could have tried to work my way in and got some quality minutes down there but Im happy with my decision to come here. I think that the decision to come here will help me along with my future. Thats why I made this decision, not for right now but for the future." Kenneth Faried Nuggets Jersey . Sundays game against the Colorado Rapids at B.C. Place Stadium has important implications in determining Major League Soccers playoff picture and will also mark the final game in the career of veteran South Korean defender Young-Pyo Lee. Wilson Chandler Jersey .C. - Canadian ice dancing, it seems, is in good hands. http://www.nuggetsproshop.com/Arron-Afflalo-Nuggets-Jersey/ .ca looks back at the stories and moments that made the year memorable.Im going to write in defence of Capitals RW Alex Ovechkin, if only because there have been some recent attacks and, while I can certainly live with them being directed at Ovechkin, the analytical process ought to be better, particularly if its going to be a hit piece on the leagues leading goal-scorer. Yes, Im writing to defend a player that is on pace for a 59-goal season, when the second-best goal-scorer in the NHL this season, Torontos Phil Kessel, is on pace for 43. Naturally, I didnt think that Ovechkin would be a player that needed much defending, but hes taken some hits lately. Im going to largely ignore his contributions on the power play because its not in any dispute that Ovechkin is great with the man advantage and can make a difference even when he doesnt score. On one side of the discussion, we have the Toronto Star, with their Department of Hockey Analytics, and while there are plenty of flaws in Ovechkins game, they somehow determined that his goals-for/against percentage was the way to illustrate the problem. Never mind that goals for/against percentage is essentially measuring plus-minus. Ill get to that in a moment but, first, also peruse the Hockey News piece by Ken Campbell who, after Ovechkin was minus-5 against Columbus, decided that Ovechkin has to decide what kind of player he is. After all, Ovechkin was minus-17 on the season after that game. Whats odd about using plus-minus to denigrate Ovechkins contributions is that anyone doing serious analytical work in hockey has been against using plus-minus because it involves so many factors beyond an individual players control (not least of which are the contributions of nine other skaters and two goaltenders when the game is 5-on-5) and, generally, involves small samples because goals are relatively rare events. Its funny to find myself in this position, because I can be a bit of an apologist for plus-minus. You spend enough time around the game and that thinking can be pretty common, and when the sample is large enough, you can get a pretty decent list of players at both ends of the spectrum. (For example, heres the list of players with the best cumulative plus-minus since 2000, and here are the worst.) But, Ive at least learned that there are many other factors that go into whether a player is a plus or minus player, and they must be considered if youre going to attempt to pass judgment on a single season or, especially, a portion of a season. So, lets take a look at some factors that are at play to make Alex Ovechkin a minus-17. First off, the shooting percentage of others on the ice with Ovechkin at 5-on-5 is ridiculously low. His 6.3% is only ahead of fourth-liners Aaron Volpatti and Jay Beagle among Capitals forwards. The suggestion could be made -- and of course it has been -- that Ovechkin isnt making those around him better, but here are the 5-on-5 on-ice shooting percentages when Ovechkin has been on the ice for the past five seasons: 10.36%, 8.62%, 8.05%, 11.76%, 9.09%. Youre really going to have to dig for reasons, other than poor luck and ineffective shooters, to explain even-strength shooting effectiveness declining by 40% over last season, especially when Ovechkin himself is shooting 10.6% (18 goals, 170 shots) at 5-on-5. Taking away Ovechkins 18 goals on 170 shots, leaves the other Capitals to score eight goals on 242 shots (3.3%) with Ovechkin on the ice. Marcus Johansson, his most common left winger, has one goal on 51 shots. This undeniably effects plus-miinus, right? Of course it does. Dikembe Mutombo Nuggets Jersey. Give Ovechkin an average on-ice shooting percentage (say, 8%) and that is a difference of about seven goals. At the other end of the rink, Ovechkin is getting burned with a .909 save percentage at 5-on-5. Naturally, the argument will be that Ovechkins defensive play is what leads to that low percentage. Keep in mind, that percentage is well below career norms for him (.922 over the past five seasons, including this one) and ranks near the bottom on the Capitals roster. Use that typical save percentage, on 439 shots against, and that becomes a difference of 5-6 goals. So, why not take a look at where the shots are coming from with Ovechkin on the ice? According to Some Kind of Ninjas Shot Tracker, shots against the Capitals with Ovechkin on the ice at even strength, come from an average distance of 34.5 feet. In the previous five seasons, it has been 34.2, 36.6, 35.8, 34.6 and 35.9 feet on average. There can be an argument made, based on those average shot distances, that Ovechkins most effective defensive performances were in 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 (the Dale Hunter season), but there really isnt a huge difference; goaltenders arent suddenly flummoxed by 34-foot shots when 36-footers are easy pickings. On top of that, best of luck trying to identify those particular seasons as anything close to Ovechkins best. Why? Because he scored 70 goals and 150 points in 157 games over those two seasons, producing the two lowest point scoring rates of his career. Yes, even lower than this season, when virtually no one else puts the puck in the net with him on the ice. Of course Ovechkin is not a defensive whiz, but that shouldnt stand as an indictment any more than it has for elite offensive players throughout the history of the game. Seriously, take a look at the Top 10 goal-scorers in the league, none of whom put the puck in the net like Ovechkin, and identify the ones that are notably strong backcheckers. Some are: Joe Pavelski, Alexander Steen, Patrick Sharp, but theres no reason to believe that right wingers Kessel or Corey Perry or Patrick Kane are doing brilliant work in the defensive end. Heres the thing: theyre all great players! Part of the trouble for Ovechkin is that the Capitals havent been able to win in the postseason, so he gets painted with the brush of failure for a whole host of team shortcomings. Thats what comes with being a superstar. This Capitals team is flawed. They rank in the bottom third of the league in Fenwick Close (measuring shot attempts, not including blocks, at even strength, with the score close), which is a good indication of team puck possession, yet Ovechkin has relatively solid possession numbers. If you want to break down a players overall contribution, and feel that you must use one statistic in order to do so (better yet, dont), then at least reduce the impact of others on the ice and look at the possession stats, because it wont matter that linemates arent finishing or that, for whatever reason, goaltenders arent stopping the puck. Shooting and save percentages fluctuate and while they affect perception -- just ask Tyler Bozak -- they dont get to the bottom of a players on-ice contribution, and so it is with Ovechkin this year, who is having a fine season, no matter what his plus-minus says. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Cheap NFL JerseysWholesale JerseysWholesale NFL JerseysJerseys From ChinaWholesale NFL JerseysCheap NFL JerseysCheap Jerseys ' ' '